Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is eLearning as good as face-to-face training?
2. How do we know if our students are ready for eLearning?
3. Our students aren't very motivated to learn. Will eLearning increase their motivation?
4. What happens when our students have questions?
5. How does eLearning save us money?
6. I understand that eLearning saves us money, but doesn't it also cost more upfront?
7. What is the difference between synchronous and asynchronous eLearning?
8. What size of projects does Dual Code usually accept?
9. Does Dual Code offer courses directly to students?
10. How is open-source software beneficial to me as a client?

1. Is eLearning as good as face-to-face training?
A meta-analysis of more than 300 studies comparing eLearning to conventional, face-to-face training clearly indicates that eLearning is as effective as instructor-led training, each method having its own advantages¹.

After hundreds of media comparison studies, we’ve learned that it’s not the delivery media that enables learning; it’s how any given delivery technology supports human learning processes. If two lessons include all of the elements needed for learning, learning will occur whether the lesson is offered digitally or in a classroom. For example, if an eLearning module is interactive and based on sound instructional design principles such as the dual coding theory, while a comparison face-to-face lesson is not, learning will be more easily achieved in the eLearning version. And vice versa.

1. Bernard, R. M., P. C. Abrami, Y. Lou, E. Borokhovski, A. Wade, L. Wozney, P. A. Wallet, M. Fixet, and B. Huang. 2004. “How does distance education compare with classroom instruction? A meta-analysis of the empirical literature.” Review of Educational Research 74(3): 379–439.

2. How do we know if our students are ready for eLearning?
If your students use email on a regular basis and feel comfortable surfing the Web, watching videos on YouTube or posting messages on Facebook, then they are definitely ready for eLearning.

3. Our students aren't very motivated to learn. Will eLearning increase their motivation?
Most people aren’t motivated to learn because they don’t see the immediate need to learn. This is typical of training sessions scheduled way before (or after) the student needs to complete the task in question. Because your Corporate University enables just-in-time learning, students tend to be much more motivated to learn.

Also, students are sometimes too busy putting out fires and dealing with their day-to-day job. The anytime, anywhere nature of your Corporate University allows your students to learn at their convenience, which increases attendance and course completion.

Online courses created by Dual Code also tend to be more interactive than instructor-led classes. Let's be honest. An instructor can only interact with so many students at any given time. An eLearning session on the other hand is able to interact with an unlimited amount of students. It's effectively a one-on-one training session between a computer and an individual.

4. What happens when our students have questions?
Your private chat room allows you to interact with your students in real time. By publishing the pre-scheduled hours for the chat room, say Monday to Friday between 2pm and 3pm, you're allowing your students an opportunity to interact with subject-matter experts at their convenience.

5. How does eLearning save us money?
A Corporate University saves you money in many ways by:

• Eliminating travel and living expenses for your students or instructors
• Eliminating the need for training facilities and equipment
• Reducing the need for instructors
• Eliminating printing costs of training manuals
• Enabling off-hours learning
• Increasing employee productivity.

For more details on these points and other ideas on how eLearning saves organizations money, please visit http://elearning-ottawa.org/2009/04/14/top-7-ways-elearning-saves-money.aspx.

6. I understand that eLearning saves us money, but doesn't it also cost more upfront?
It is rare to find organizations who have truly costed out exactly what all their face-to-face training efforts cost. If they did, they would look favorably upon the economics of eLearning. True, the upfront development costs of a first-class eLearning program are higher than instructor-led training, but they are recouped many times via much lower delivery costs.

7. What is the difference between synchronous and asynchronous eLearning?
Many eLearning vendors use the term synchronous and asynchronous when describing their offering. Synchronous means that an instructor is present when the course is delivered, even though the course might be delivered remotely over the Internet. Asynchronous means that the instructor does not need to be present, thereby allowing students to learn anytime, at their convenience.

Dual Code's Corporate University solution comprises both asynchronous and synchronous systems. Our Learning Management System (LMS) allows you to host pre-recorded courses so your students can learn anytime, at their convenience, while our Web conferencing system and chat rooms allow your students to interact with a live instructor and ask questions.

8. What size of projects does Dual Code usually accept?
Dual Code is willing to accept any project, large or small. While most of our clients outsource their entire eLearning program to us, others prefer to come to us when they need expertise in a specific area, such as the development of 3D virtual instructors. Whether you require our services for 1 week or 1 year, we'll treat you with the same level of professionalism.

9. Does Dual Code offer courses directly to students?
Dual Code does not offer courses directly to students. Dual Code designs, develops and hosts Corporate Universities and eLearning courses for franchisors, technology companies, educational institutions, non-profit organizations and all levels of government.

10. How is open-source software beneficial to me as a client?
There are a number of reasons why partnering with a provider who leverages open-source software over closed or proprietary software is beneficial:

• Cost Savings
  Many educational institutions (e.g. universities, colleges) develop best-in-class open-source programs and make them available free of charge under the open-source licensing model. By leveraging these free applications, Dual Code can offer its clients a professional eLearning solution at a fraction of the cost of proprietary software.
  
  
• Customization
  Closed-source applications can only be customized within the scope provided by the original vendor. Open-source applications allow Dual Code to customize any sub-component of our solution to meet the needs of our clients. Open-source applications also allow us to easily integrate the solution to your existing OSS/BSS systems.
  
  
• Avoiding Vendor Lock-in
  Organisations are said to be 'locked-in' to software products when the costs of switching to alternatives are prohibitively high. Proprietary software vendors can lock users in to their products by ensuring that they are not readily compatible with potential rivals. Vendors may then increase the price of product upgrades or support without too great a risk of losing existing customers.
  
  By leveraging software based on open standard formats, Dual Code clients have no danger of being locked-in as they always have the option of switching service providers or deploying a system of their own.
  
  
• Mitigation of Product Discontinuation
  Commercial software vendors go bust or get bought up from time to time. When this happens, there is no guarantee that their software products will continue to be available, supported or updated. This can result in users needing to switch products, which can be very expensive and difficult, especially if they are heavily 'locked-in' to their current product.
  
  Thanks to open-source software, this danger is greatly reduced. As the source code is not 'owned' in the same way that proprietary source code is, user communities will continue to support open-source software as long as it remains useful.
  
  
• Benefiting from a Large User Community
  By adopting open-source software, you are taking advantage of a large community of users and developers who have an interest in working together to support each other and improve the software. The extent to which you benefit from this community is phenomenal, as can be attested by the hundreds of modules, plug-ins, extensions and language packs that have already been developed by community members and made available at little or no cost.
  
  
• Bug Fixing
  All software releases contain bugs. Hopefully, the people developing the software will have spotted and dealt with any critical issues, but any development team has only so much time in which to test a piece of software before it is released. When a bug is spotted in proprietary software, the only people who can fix it are the original developers, as only they have access to the source code. Open-source software is different. As a large number of users can access and change the code, bugs tend to be more visible and more rapidly corrected.